Culture Shock
by QueenAnne
Summary: "America is my country, Paris is my home." The City of Lights holds unexpected shocks for Rory as she encounters an old friend in a new situation--R/T


Anywhere  
  
Chapter 1: The beginning  
  
Author's Note: Okay, y'all, this is a random fic I started…and so far, it's really super-short, and I don't know if you want more or not, AND I know it requires a bigtime stretch of your gilmore-girl-loving imaginations, but I write for the sake of entertainment, right? So stick with me here? = ) Anyway, read on!--Annest  
  
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"Don't get me wrong, Lane, but I…oomph!" Rory quickly grabbed her cell phone, which was ready to dive from its perilous position on her shoulder. "It's not that I don't like to…grr!" The shirt was hard to get off with a phone on her shoulder, but she kept talking. "They keep calling, and I know that I really…" Shirt all the way off. "…enjoy this job, and it's gre…" Pants. First one leg and then "…it's great and all, but really!…" Second leg. "they can't expect me to work with hi…" Panty hose…"of the devil," Rory mumbled.  
  
"What did you say? I didn't quite understand that," Lane said with a chuckle.  
  
"Panty hose," Rory offered by way of explanation. "So as I was saying…" Thankfully she had gotten them on without any runs. "…they can't expect me to work with someone else! It's almost…" Push-up bra. Lord, she hated this job sometimes. "…it's almost…" Suit skirt. Black. Highly uncomfortable. Rory groaned.  
  
"Almost impossible?" her best friend asked, and Rory could just see her grin. "Rory, babe," White button-down blouse was next, and then the black suit jacket. "You're one of the best out there. But he's just as good as you are, I hear. It's a nasty assignment, I know, and I know you would rather be working with Boone…"  
  
"Nasty? I just put on panty hose, a push-up bra and a disgustingly uncomfortable business suit in a train compartment made for one of the mice on Cinderella. You want nasty?!" Rory interrupted, almost hysterical. Lane cracked up on the other end of the line.  
  
"That's what you signed up for, crazy," she said. Rory huffed, clasped the necklace and checked her hair in the tiny mirror. Putting on the blonde wig hadn't been easy in the cramped space, but she knew it looked finally natural.  
  
"So what are you doing this time?" Lane questioned, fiddling with a computer monitor in the office of the other end of the line: the CIA east coast headquarters in Boston.  
  
"I have the physical description of this guy…he's an American who's an been stationed at the embassies around Europe for the last five or six years. A prodigy," she mimicked the voice of the director, "and I haven't even met him, Lane! How do they expect me to know who he is?" Rory yelled into the line.  
  
"Okay, Ror, calm down!!" Lane told her with a sigh. "Have you even looked at the description?"  
  
"No," came the grudging answer. "But I will!" she claimed immediately. "Just…later." Lane laughed at her childishness.  
  
"Okay, so what's the assignment?"  
  
"It's nothing. That's the worst part. There's nothing fun to it at all! We're going to the embassy in Paris, posing as a CIA man and a new vice consul, respectively, and finding & capturing this murderer. Probably won't even be anything remotely fun involved at all!"  
  
"How long will you be gone? And…wait, Paris isn't fun?" Lane balked.  
  
"We ought to be there for three weeks, minimum. I mean, there's no way…or I don't think there is,…of us catching whoever this freak is. The French police nor the FBI has been able to do it. So we'll go in, undercover, basically, and figure out what's going on. Then let the feds do the work where they actually have to get their hands dirty, you know," Rory explained, smoothing on appearance changing concealer & covering her lips with coral-pink lipgloss. Two pins at her temples temporarily changed her eyes, which wouldn't matter after she slipped on the high-tech sunglasses she carried in her attaché case. "And no, Lane," she sighed, "Paris is not fun when you're stuck in an embassy all day long!"  
  
"You'll be gone at least three weeks? What are they going to do, put you two in a hotel? That'll get old fast," Lane predicted. Yes, the sunglasses shrouded her eyes perfectly.  
  
"No…not exactly. The government owns some property around the city. Most of the office workers live together in a large historical mansion they got after world war two. However, whoever this is and I will be living in a town house near downtown Paris. I heard it's a great place to stay, and they keep it perfect," Rory reported resignedly. "But still…oh, Lane, I need to go," she said, catching sight of herself in the mirror. Brown- haired, pale, small-framed Rory Gilmore was now sheer blonde, tall, tanned & well-endowed Rory Gilmore. Even she could hardly recognize herself. "This train gets to the station in about two seconds, and I have to get off immediately if I'm going to meet up with this guy." Turning around, Rory smacked her forehead into the wooden door of the tight compartment. "Why oh why did I ever let them talk me into switching from the communications & public relations department to covert ops? Was I drunk, Lane?" she questioned her best friend and her own sanity.  
  
"Not to my knowledge, although there was a heavy amount of it after you realized what you have agreed to," the laughing Korean on the other end of the line reminisced. Rory scowled at the offending door and got ready to leave quickly.  
  
"Okay, Lane, I'm leaving. Really. I'll call you on your cell…no, I'll call the secure line, I think, in your office,…when I get there."  
  
"Don't forget to look at the description," Lane cautioned. "And make sure that the tapes we have of you are all in order for the press conferences while you're gone, okay?"  
  
"Got it. If you see her, tell mom I said hi? I'll be sure to bring you back something."  
  
"Ooh! Like an eiffel tower paperweight?"  
  
"Why do you need a paperweight? You do everything on the computer!" Rory protested.  
  
"Or one of those great little things that the sidewalk artists do. I wouldn't mind that, honestly…but I think I'd have to go with a paperweight. You always need paperweights," Lane continued to ramble.  
  
"Especially ones of the eiffel tower," Rory said resignedly. "Goodbye, Lane."  
  
"Especially! I mean it's so…towerish, and…"  
  
Click. Now…to the job at hand.  
  
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The train attendant gave Rory a slightly-lewd grin as she stepped off, so she couldn't help but swaying just a little as she walked off the platform to the station. Rory groaned as she saw the time on a large station clock; she was two minutes late. And she was never late, damn the train, if you asked her.  
  
"Okay, stupid thing," she muttered as she pulled a cell phone out of the inside breast pocket of her blazer. Punching in 1, as if to check her messages, she listened as she stalked across the station to the pre-made message.  
  
"Your partner is currently running by the alias Nicholas Rogan," the mechanized, nameless voice started to describe. Rory checked the fact that the name was an alias into her close memory. "Alias Rogan is six one, approximately one hundred sixty pounds. Blonde hair, usually in a very tousled style," Blonde tousled hair. No…that was only a memory, Rory thought as the voice continued, "and bright blue eyes." Bright blue eyes. Tousled hair. Six one. Oh lord. "Meet point will be--" Rory's attention was cut off when she bumped into a man's chest.  
  
"I'm sorry," Rory said shortly, but then she was stopped by a hand on her arm. Her heart raced at the tiny fire of the unexpected possibility of danger, and she caught sight of a piercing gaze the second she snapped her head up. Oh lord…again.  
  
"Tristan," she breathed, gasping silently for a second.  
  
"Rory," her counterpart said simply, sticking his hands in his pockets and taking a step away, as if she should follow him.  
  
"You…well, Mr. DuGrey, you don't sound surprised to see me at all!" Rory exclaimed quietly.  
  
"You don't say!" he mocked with a grin, pulling her right arm as she walked. Rory stumbled for a second, tripping on a loose tile. Yanking her arm from his grasp, she stopped, and Tristan spun around to stare at her for a second.  
  
"What are you doing? I'd love to witness yet again that excuse for charm you exuded back in high school, but I'm afraid I have to meet a business contact here in…well, three minutes ago," Rory told Tristan with a cocked eyebrow, putting down her brown leather attaché case right where she stood. Tristan, in turn, grabbed the handles and half turned to walk toward the waiting black Lincoln.  
  
"Well then, Ms. Gilmore--it is still Ms. Gilmore, correct?--it looks like we were both on time, doesn't it? Now come on, I'm kind of in a hurry," he said, flipping open a wallet for her to see a CIA ID card and flipping it shut again. Rory's jaw dropped and she could only stare at him for a second.  
  
"Wa ahy iiheh aehay!" Rory exclaimed. Tristan snorted and spun around.  
  
"What?!" he exclaimed.  
  
"Sorry," she told him with a sarcastic leer, "I keep forgetting to not talk with my jaw on the floor." He laughed, and opened the door.  
  
"C'mon, get in," Tristan told her, motioning toward the door. Rory, with a last glance at the time and a thought to the time of their first briefing, slid in, trying to preserve what dignity she thought she had left. "Now now, Mary, isn't it? We'll have so much fun," he said, sliding into passenger's seat on the left side. Rory shot a look at him, and then in front of her.  
  
Damn British cars. And the same went for this job, too.  
  
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What do you think? It's short, I know, pero pienso que trabaja. Gosh dangit, never mind that. Stupid unknowing use of Spanish. Anyway, let's say this, because you all have been such a great audience on my last fic: gimme…well, I don't know, but give me a good number of reviews and I'll start the second chapter. I know, I know, I ought to just update at ten reviews, but spring break ends tomorrow night, and I won't have a ton of time. But I CAN promise to work, eh? So…yep. I won't make you review. I can just thank you for reading. Ciao!--Annest 


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